OPINION

GOP Moves to Save Biden: We Want Amnesty, Too!

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President Joe Biden’s immigration bill will put virtually all illegal immigrants on a bullet train to citizenship, provided that they meet the onerous requirement of claiming to have entered the country before Jan. 1, 2021. Only terrorists and convicted felons are excluded — at least in theory, but past experience suggests they’ll get amnesty, too. Even illegal immigrants who’ve already been deported will be invited back and given amnesty.

So far, the Republicans’ response has been to propose their own amnesty, while throwing in some boob-bait for the rubes about border security.

Even the election of Donald Trump, a ridiculous creature who became president by promising to crack down on illegal immigration and build a wall (promises he ignored), hasn’t put a dent in Washington’s enthusiasm for overwhelming the country with the third world.

On this, the parties are united! The only difference is, Republicans lie to the voters about securing the border.

Under Biden’s immigration bill, a gigantic number of illegals will be given green cards immediately and will be eligible for citizenship in three years — just in time for the 2024 election.

That includes all Dreamers (who entered as minors — or say they did); those who came in as temporary agricultural workers (or say they did); and any illegals who have been granted Temporary Protected Status because of some disaster in their home countries.

Biden’s bill doesn’t even include the usual false promises of border security. That’s where Republicans come in!

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., is floating a bill that would grant amnesty to Dreamers in exchange for vague promises of a border wall system.

A border wall system should not be confused with a border wall. It’s easy enough to write “wall.” So why didn’t he do that?

Because a border wall system will not have a wall. It will fund a lot of meaningless nonsense, such as drones (so we can amuse ourselves by watching illegals sneaking into our country); “boots on the ground” (so we can employ many more government workers to assist illegals as they cross the border); and surely the inevitable “commission” (so we can employ yet more government workers to produce useless reports).

The only other difference between the Democrats’ and Republicans’ amnesty is that, in Sen. Scott’s bill, the amnestied illegals would get citizenship in 15 years, instead of three. By 2036, Sen. Scott will be 83 years old, enjoying the adulation of his corporate donors.

The two key flaws with any amnesty are:

1) Real border security must precede amnesty.

The two parts cannot be done simultaneously. A border fence must be started first — and completed first. Only after all the ACLU lawsuits and court rulings have run their course, and the border is still secure, do we move to Step Two. I happen to think we don’t do the amnesty part ever, but it’s tendentious even to discuss what to do with illegal aliens already here until we can prevent more from coming.

2) Despite low-ball figures being cited by immigrant grievance groups, the number of illegals eligible for the Dreamer amnesty is: pretty much all of them. I promise you, it will be in the millions.

Almost any illegal alien can profess to be a Dreamer. The only requirements are that the illegal alien be between the age of 15 and 39; claim to have illegally entered the U.S. before turning 16; not be a convicted felon (which will be ignored, as it was under President Clinton); and have a G.E.D. or equivalent (which will be waived).

Apart from the felony conviction (ignored) and G.E.D. (waived) — how can any of that be proved or disproved? With trick questions about “Baywatch” to determine the applicant’s age?

Reagan’s 1986 amnesty included a legalization program for illegals who’d performed agricultural work in the U.S. for a minimum of 90 days in the prior year. That seems pretty narrowly defined, right? At the time, it was estimated that only a few hundred thousand farmworkers would qualify.

In the end, more than a million people applied.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service determined that 888,637 of the applications were fraudulent: Alleged farm workers told interviewers that cotton was purple or claimed to have pulled cherries from the ground.

Of the 888,637 fraudulent applications, guess how many our government approved? More than 800,000. Not one, but TWO of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers were in this country because of the farmworker amnesty.

How much easier is it to lie about your age or date of entry, compared to lying about prior farm work? Of course, even if you’re somehow rejected, you can stay. (It’s not as if you’re going to be deported.)

Has the public ever been so overwhelmingly on one side of an issue — and politicians on the other?

In his first few weeks in office, Biden issued 28 executive orders, five of them pushing more immigration.According to a Morning Consult poll, all five of Biden’s immigration orders were among the seven least popular with voters.

But Republicans didn’t become a minority party by listening to voters! Sure, they’ll disgust Americans by pushing amnesty, but that will give them more time to talk about the deficit and “socialism.” How about privatizing Social Security or maybe burbling on about Iran? The GOP could return to a 1970s-style, microscopic minority status in no time!

As Talleyrand supposedly said of the restored Bourbon monarchy, re-creating the conditions that led to the French Revolution, “They’ve learned nothing and forgotten nothing.”